A transfer from a richer individual to a poorer one seems to be the most intuitive and straightforward way of reducing income inequality in a society. However, can such a transfer reduce the welfare of the society? We show that a rich-to-poor transfer can induce a response in the individuals'...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and adopt a generalised version of Roemer's (1998) Equality of Opportunity (EOp) framework, which we call extended EOp, for analysing second-best optimal income taxation. Unlike the pure EOp criterion of Roemer (1998) the extended EOp criterion allows...

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) provide income to the poor in an effort to improve current welfare and promote investment in human and social capital to prevent future deprivation. So far, the impact evaluation literature has focused on estimating current effects on outcomes such as school...

In public policy discourse, the role of government is not universally accepted, but tends to have widespread support. Most of those who want smaller government with fewer programs accede to the notion that government is here to stay in, e.g., care for the poor. This paper challenges the role of...

The federal government's welfare reform efforts have two defining characteristics: first, welfare reform requires welfare recipients to work for their checks (and to move toward permanent, self-sustainable employment); and second welfare reform devolves administrative responsibility to the...

Existing sociological research on support for anti-poverty programs largely focuses on broad categories of welfare or assistance to the poor rather than particular types of transfers. Using an experimental survey design and mixed methods research, we examine whether support for anti-poverty...

There is no consensus on how to measure social welfare and inequality when households have different needs. As we show, a dilemma emerges between holding households responsible for their needs or compensating them. This dilemma is of first-order importance for social welfare, but generally plays...